For our final Lunchtime Poll before the holiday weekend, I thought we’d check in with Charlie Brown — the only person Linus knows who can take a wonderful season like Christmas and turn it into a problem. “Of all the Charlie Browns in the world, you’re the Charlie Browniest.”

In A Charlie Brown Christmas, after Lucy tasked him with getting the biggest aluminum Christmas tree he could find for the kids’ play, Charlie Brown instead picked a funny-looking hidden gem that was just like him: barely viable in a sea of brightly colored commercialism, sprouting just a few tufts of foliage in random directions, and in desperate need of a little love.

“Gee, do they still make wooden Christmas trees?” wondered Linus. “It doesn’t seem to fit the modern spirit.”

I’m sitting three inches away from my parents’ glorious so-fake-it’s-real Christmas tree right now and must admit I find it very alluring. (DANCMSTR Dee and Barnacle Bill have always understood the importance of maintaining a modern spirit.) But I think I would buy a sad little Charlie Brown tree for my own sad little apartment. I’d call it a “statement piece” and decorate it with lightweight tinsel fringe, a single strand of sequined caramel corn, and a gem-encrusted Dancing With the Stars bangle to support the “trunk” like Linus adorably did with his blanket.

“Everything Annie touches turns into a disaster,” my regretful visitors would say, and I’d nod solemnly and then press play on Dragonette’s modern-day Charlie Brown anthem on my iTunes. They may be right, but those commercial dogs are not going to ruin my Christmas.